


Moving forward, Holding Back

by RedStarFiction



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 11:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6236950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedStarFiction/pseuds/RedStarFiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at the interlude leading up to Jamie's second marriage and Jenny's decision to make it happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving forward, Holding Back

Jenny had watched Jamie move about the house like a ghost for weeks and if truth be told he was getting on her last nerve. She loved him, loved him more dearly than the fool probably realised, and the suffering he had endured since that awful day when that fiend Randall first came to Lallybroch broke her heart. However she also knew that her little brother had made choices which had made his path harder than it could be.  
She snorted to herself and pounded more flour into the dough she was kneading; if offered a smooth but dull path lined with daisies or an adventurous path littered with sticks and sharp stones, Jamie would have taken the stones even as a little boy.  
Jenny sighed and straightened her aching back, they weren't getting any younger and the past was the past. Jamie could have married a local lass and lived happily as a farmer at Lallybroch, surrounded by his bairns and his tenants as their father had done, but he had not done so and wishing it so wouldn't change it.  
But it was not too late for him, not yet. He was forty-one years old and still a fine looking man. Certainly too old for one of the more eligible lassies now but there were plenty of widows still of child bearing age who might provide him a family and a purpose.  
Jenny heard the dogs begin barking and looked up from her work. Jamie stepped into the yard and she scowled at the expression on his face. His eyes were hooded and his mouth set in a grim line, only quirking slightly as he stooped to fuss the dogs. His entire being radiated unhappiness and Jenny found herself becoming angry with him, already anticipating him slipping through the kitchen door and making polite but banal conversation with her before quietly sidling away to hide in his study with his books and his thoughts until lunch time.  
Jamie straightened and looked directly at Jenny. For a moment their eyes locked and then he blinked and slid his gaze from hers and turned to walk back the way he had come. It was the last straw.  
“JAMES FRASER!”  
Jenny roared and whether it was shock or years of childhood conditioning, Jamie's shoulders hunched around his ears and he stopped in his tracks. Jenny threw the dough onto the worktop and stormed out of the kitchen door, scattering the chickens, who called their protest at her heels.  
“Aye Janet?”  
Jamie turned to face her, his stance now challenging.  
“What in the Hell is wrong wi' ye?”  
“Me?”  
“Aye! Ye!”  
Jenny snapped as she reached him  
“Ye walk around as though the weight o' the world is on ye shoulders and no one has e'er known suffering but ye!”  
“Ach!”  
Jamie spat on the ground beside him in disgust and Jenny lost the small thread of calm that she had held onto  
“Christ Jamie! Ye've the manners of a pig!”  
“And ye've the mouth o' a sailor!”  
“If I have it's because ye've tried me to it! Everyday is a new gauntlet of the trials and tribulations of Jamie Fraser and I'm sick o' it.”  
“Ye dinna ken my life Jenny.”  
“Because ye willna tell me!”  
“If ye dinna wish me to live here, ye've only to say the word and I'll leave.”  
Jenny balled her hands into fists at her side, and stared at him, eyes flaring wide  
“Och aye and wouldn't that just suit ye fine: driven from ye home by ye bitch sister – another chapter in the book o' sorrow that is yer life!”  
“I dinna...”  
“Because no one, NO ONE can ken how it feels to be James Fraser! No one can imagine ye pain and damn anyone who tries!”  
“I ne'er asked ye to imagine my pain! Ye are the one who took it upon yeself to do that an' if it's making ye miserable I suggest ye stop!”  
Jamie glared back at her and Jenny noticed the skin of his neck beginning to turn a hot shade of red.  
“Ye ne'er asked me to but how can I not? Ye've turned this house into a place of mourning and yet ye willna tell me or anyone else here what it is we're supposed to be weepin' for!”  
“I havena done any such thing!”  
“Aye ye have.”  
“Damn it Janet! I canna do right can I? If I am around ye, I am a nuisance, If I am away from ye I'm a recluse!”  
“I ne'er said ye were a nuisance!”  
“Ye dinna need to, I can see it. Ye dinna wish me to be here but ye havena the stomach to tell me.”  
“Of course I want ye here, but ye need something in ye life Jamie!”  
“Dinna presume to ken what I need Jenny.”  
Jamie's voice held a warning note that had compelled soldiers and ruffians to silence but Jenny was made of sterner stuff  
“Aye, I will because ye are too thick heided to ken it yeself. Ye need a wife Jamie!”  
“NO!”  
Jamie bellowed but Jenny pressed on  
“Ye lock yeself away for hours at a time...”  
“So that I can get a bit o' peace from this house full of Murrays! Had ye kept ye legs closed once in a while I might be able to sit somewhere other than a locked room wi'out interuption.”  
“Oh! So now it's my family that is the problem is it?”  
Silence fell between them for a moment and Jamie ran a hand tersely through his hair.  
“No. O' course not. Forgive me, I didna mean that.”  
“Forgiven.”  
Jenny said, the word clipped but sincere. Jamie wiped the back of his hand across is mouth and Jenny noted that his fingers were trembling.  
“Come and sit wi' me mo brathair.”  
Jenny inclined her head to the kitchen and Jamie nodded, following meekly in her wake. Once they were seated at the table, hot mugs of tea laced with a drop of brandy in front of them Jenny spoke again, not in English but in the language of their childhood, their ancestors and their land.  
“What ails you so my darling boy?”  
“I am tired sister, so very tired.  
Jamie answered, the Gaelic felt smooth on his tongue and he felt himself relaxing  
“I love you and your kin but I miss my wife and the children we may have had.”  
“We all loved Claire, but she would not wish this sorrow on you.”  
Jenny reached out and gripped Jamie's huge hand in her own small one.  
“You must take a wife brother, begin a life anew.”  
“No. Never.”  
Jamie moved his hand and shook his head resolutely.  
“You live a half life at the moment brother.”  
“And I will live as such until I see her again and she resumes her place at my side.”  
“It is a waste!”  
Jenny cried softly and Jamie shrugged  
“Aye, perhaps, but it is my life to waste Jenny.”  
he smiled faintly, switching back into English.  
Jenny sighed and shook her head sadly  
“Jenny ...”  
Jamie reached across the table and brushed her hair back from her brow  
“Ye hold a special place in my heart that will ne'er belong to another, ye are my sister and I love ye dearly, but ye canna ken my whole heart. I am grateful for all that ye and Ian have done for me but please, dinna try to interfere wi' my life now. I ha' spent too many years being a prisoner and perhaps I deserved them, but I canna live that way again, no' in my home. It is more than I can bear.”  
Jamie's voice cracked and a single tear slid down his cheek and Jenny felt her heart tear at the sight of it.  
“Alright.”  
She nodded,  
“But ye do need a purpose Jamie, this drifting existence is beneath ye.”  
Jamie inclined his head and stood, leaning across the table to kiss her cheek.  
“Thank ye sister.”  
He smiled and with a final gentle squeeze of her shoulder, left the kitchen and made his way to the stable.

Jamie paused in the quiet of the stables and breathed in the smell of hay and horse shit. He had lived in the stables of Helwater for so many years it had taken a while for him to feel comfortable in his room at Lallybroch. Each of the stalls was empty, the horses were all out with Ian and the boys who were working further afield today. Jamie took a few steadying breaths and then drove his fist into the wood of the nearest stall door. The skin of his knuckles split and left a red smear of blood across the wood but he immediately drove his other fist into it. He beat the door until a familiar crunch and blinding pain told him that his mangled ring finger had broken again.  
“INFRINN!”  
He roared and kicked at the pile of hay beside him in frustration, scattering it across the floor. Jamie sat down on the floor exhausted and sore and put his head on his knees, peering at his bloodied and swollen knuckles  
“Come to me Sassenach.”  
He mumbled to himself and Claire appeared in his minds eye as clear as day, those extraordinary eyes locked onto his, warming him to the bone. Jamie breathed a sigh of relief. All the while he could conjure her, he knew that he would see her again, in the next life if not in this one. As long as he could picture her face he was not truly alone and he needed no one but Claire.


End file.
